WASHINGTON — North Korea announced on Wednesday that it would suspend its nuclear weapons tests and uranium enrichment and allow international inspectors to monitor activities at its main nuclear complex. The surprise announcement raised the possibility of ending a diplomatic impasse that has allowed the country’s nuclear program to continue for years without international oversight.

This is good news. A victory for diplomacy, a chance for the North Korean people to have enough to eat, and an indication that the new leadership is open to making agreements with the outside world. All good things.

Wow, that is unexpected. I wonder what it means for the internal balance of power- does it mean Jong-un has successfully consolidated most of the power he wants for himself (and thus, able to get away with this) or is he having issues, and this is a targeted move to force his internal opposition to act more openly? Or it could be an attempt to either make Iran look worse, or to draw attention away from them. Well, regardless of my flailing attempts to look deeper into it, this is good news.

Ghostbear wrote:Wow, that is unexpected. I wonder what it means for the internal balance of power- does it mean Jong-un has successfully consolidated most of the power he wants for himself (and thus, able to get away with this) or is he having issues, and this is a targeted move to force his internal opposition to act more openly? Or it could be an attempt to either make Iran look worse, or to draw attention away from them. Well, regardless of my flailing attempts to look deeper into it, this is good news.

The cynical perspective is this is a repeat of Bush's earlier attempt at thawing relations. N. Korea offered the same thing, demanded more, then reneged on the whole deal. After taking and keeping the food and fuel aid of course.

Ghostbear wrote:Wow, that is unexpected. I wonder what it means for the internal balance of power- does it mean Jong-un has successfully consolidated most of the power he wants for himself (and thus, able to get away with this) or is he having issues, and this is a targeted move to force his internal opposition to act more openly? Or it could be an attempt to either make Iran look worse, or to draw attention away from them. Well, regardless of my flailing attempts to look deeper into it, this is good news.

The cynical perspective is this is a repeat of Bush's earlier attempt at thawing relations. N. Korea offered the same thing, demanded more, then reneged on the whole deal. After taking and keeping the food and fuel aid of course.

Unfortunately with N.Korea "I'll believe it when I see it" is the operative phrase. It's nice to have gotten back to this point in negotiations, but until the inspectors are in the field it's still negotiation tactics.

We're in the traffic-chopper over the XKCD boards where there's been a thread-derailment. A Liquified Godwin spill has evacuated threads in a fourty-post radius of the accident, Lolcats and TVTropes have broken free of their containers. It is believed that the Point has perished.

Well, it's still an improvement in the sense of them seeing a point to communicating with the rest of the world. Even if that point is "We get free stuff!", it still gives everyone else some kind of leveredge to work with.

Ghostbear wrote:Well, it's still an improvement in the sense of them seeing a point to communicating with the rest of the world. Even if that point is "We get free stuff!", it still gives everyone else some kind of leveredge to work with.

Unless its 'We will build nukes until you feed our people. Then when we run out of food again, we will build some more.'

It'd still give the west something to use as leveredge. Also, I'm working under the assumption that we learned our lesson from last time and will structure any aid we send to make them just taking it and reneging on their promise more difficult. If they still find a way to do it, then we still learned something for the next time, and so on and so forth. It's not perfect, but at the very least it creates something (however flawed) to work with, instead of the nothing of before. Especially since it at least means they're willing to communicate with the rest of the world- it gives some hope. I'll take that over the alternative of absolutely nothing.

Ghostbear wrote:It'd still give the west something to use as leveredge. Also, I'm working under the assumption that we learned our lesson from last time and will structure any aid we send to make them just taking it and reneging on their promise more difficult. If they still find a way to do it, then we still learned something for the next time, and so on and so forth. It's not perfect, but at the very least it creates something (however flawed) to work with, instead of the nothing of before. Especially since it at least means they're willing to communicate with the rest of the world- it gives some hope. I'll take that over the alternative of absolutely nothing.

Oh for sure. If the price of a few years of a non-nuclear NK is that their people don't starve, then great. Just that there has to be some sort of endgame, and I don't think that it can include the pseudo-Communist monarchy that's there now.

Ultimately this is appeasement, and that's a pretty dangerous strategy. If North Korea has honest intentions, then I don't have a problem with this. And if global warming denialists turn out to be right, then I'm glad the environment isn't being trashed.

Terry Pratchett wrote:The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

yedidyak wrote:Oh for sure. If the price of a few years of a non-nuclear NK is that their people don't starve, then great. Just that there has to be some sort of endgame, and I don't think that it can include the pseudo-Communist monarchy that's there now.

Of course, just that's not really a goal that we can make into a short term one. With the way the country is run now, I'd expect it'd probably take decades to turn into a non-oppressive state. Small victories like this are exactly what we need. If we see the chance for a big victory, then it might be worth taking, but until then, just slowly working on the smaller ones is the best chance we have of making North Korea be a better place- for its citizens, for its neighbors, or for everyone else.

yedidyak wrote:Oh for sure. If the price of a few years of a non-nuclear NK is that their people don't starve, then great. Just that there has to be some sort of endgame, and I don't think that it can include the pseudo-Communist monarchy that's there now.

Of course, just that's not really a goal that we can make into a short term one. With the way the country is run now, I'd expect it'd probably take decades to turn into a non-oppressive state. Small victories like this are exactly what we need. If we see the chance for a big victory, then it might be worth taking, but until then, just slowly working on the smaller ones is the best chance we have of making North Korea be a better place- for its citizens, for its neighbors, or for everyone else.

It's only a victory if N.Korea holds up their end of the deal. If they kick the inspectors out of the country moments after the check clears then it's no victory at all, at best it's foreign aid.

N.Korea has kicked out IAEA inspectors before. The only ray of light here is that it's a new dictator at the top, however there's too many unknowns, like if he's consolidated power to actually have control, and of course that suddenly becoming the head-of-state hasn't caused him to become batshit insane.

This agreement is in many ways a test of Kim Jong-Un as a leader, to see if he pulls the same shennanigans Jong-Il did in his day, or if Jong-Un will keep his word.

The test is on the desk, Kim Jong-Un still has to answer the questions.

We're in the traffic-chopper over the XKCD boards where there's been a thread-derailment. A Liquified Godwin spill has evacuated threads in a fourty-post radius of the accident, Lolcats and TVTropes have broken free of their containers. It is believed that the Point has perished.